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Originally published as Genetics Published Articles Ahead of Print on March 23, 2009.
Genetics, Vol. 182, 481-491, June 2009, Copyright © 2009
doi:10.1534/genetics.109.102087
Coordinated Regulation of Heterochromatic Genes in Drosophila melanogaster Males
Xinxian Deng*,1,2,
S. Kiran Koya*,1,
Ying Kong* and
Victoria H. Meller*,
,3
* Department of Biological Sciences, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202 and Molecular Biology and Genetics Program, Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Detroit, Michigan 48202
3 Corresponding author: Department of Biological Sciences, 5047 Gullen Mall, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202.
E-mail: vmeller{at}biology.biosci.wayne.edu
Dosage compensation modifies the chromatin of X-linked genes to assure equivalent expression in sexes with unequal X chromosome dosage. In Drosophila dosage compensation is achieved by increasing expression from the male X chromosome. The ribonucleoprotein dosage compensation complex (DCC) binds hundreds of sites along the X chromosome and modifies chromatin to facilitate transcription. Loss of roX RNA, an essential component of the DCC, reduces expression from X-linked genes. Surprisingly, loss of roX RNA also reduces expression from genes situated in proximal heterochromatin and on the small, heterochromatic fourth chromosome. Mutation of some, but not all, of the genes encoding DCC proteins produces a similar effect. Reduction of roX function suppresses position effect variegation (PEV), revealing functional alteration in heterochromatin. The effects of roX mutations on heterochromatic gene expression and PEV are limited to males. A sex-limited role for the roX RNAs in autosomal gene expression was unexpected. We propose that this reflects a difference in the heterochromatin of males and females, which serves to accommodate the heterochromatic Y chromosome present in the male nucleus. roX transcripts may thus participate in two distinct regulatory systems that have evolved in response to highly differentiated sex chromosomes: compensation of X-linked gene dosage and modulation of heterochromatin.
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Genetics 2009 182: NP.
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